We left Norseman after a drive round the town for old times sake, been a while since we've been through here. We went down past the sports facility and on towards the Norseman East Hyden Road, a journey of 285 kms – 250 kms on gravel. The safety recommendation sign said open for all vehicles and so off we went. The road was perfect, just sticky round Lake Cowan, which is to be expected in winter.

Lake Cowan was beautiful even without much water, this is only one part of the vast lake, there was more water further up:

The flora was fabulous, the road was perfect for a gravel road.

I've been here before (even metaphorically speaking), and it always amuses me they gave this title (for those who know the satire show Little Britain – it is an added source of mirth).

Lyn drove us up the rock entry and we enjoyed the simple site, I guess others must have expected more in years gone by hence the name, there was water, and an established creek line that we crossed to get in, so it wasn't a shortage of water that disappointed (unless you went there in summer).

The person who organised this sign had this one job, and spelled it wrong, round the corner the viewing site said, correctly Lake Johnston – there's always that one person 🙂 there was some water in the distance on the other side of the road.

We had morning tea at a place called The Breakaways:

Clouds were rolling across us, and the weather forecast had been for rain further on in the wheatbelt, but now it was rapidly approaching. We Set off again and barely ten kms down the road the rain came. Which was fine, the Road got sticky, but it was fine. Then we encountered about 40 kms of roadworks which had softened up the road, and with the rain the road became a quagmire. 4×4 was better, and safer as we nearly came to grief a couple of times. I don't mind 4×4 in sand but I'm not a fan of mud at all. It reduced us to 50 – 60 kms, occasionally getting up to 70. We slogged through it for well over an hour, and came onto prime gravel again. 50 kms onwards we hit the bitumen.

Photos rarely do justice to live events, but the mud was shovel fulls on the treads and typically smeared all over the sides and rear as you'd expect, all part of the fun:

We had lunch in Hyden, an old stomping ground for both of us, then headed on towards, Kondinin, Kulin, Wikepin, and finally Narrogin for the night. We sadly missed visiting friends on the way by the route we have travelled from the Swans on the Eyre Highway, to Janine in Salmon Gums, friends in Esperance, Merredin, Kellerberrin, Koora Retreat, Kulin and more. Next time. Tomorrow is the last leg of the main journey.pvcann.com